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61-769: It was established under the authority of the Narkompros and funded through the Department of Fine Arts (IZO). In May 1920 Anatoly Lunacharsky appointed Wassily Kandinsky as its first director. David Shterenberg , who was at that time the director of IZO, stated "We organised the INKhUK as a cell for the determination of scientific hypotheses on matters of art". In its first year it attracted about 30 visual artists , Architects , musicians and art critics . Many of them were also taught at Vkhutemas and published in LEF . One of

122-550: A portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" ( proletarian culture ), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolution of 1917. This organization, a federation of local cultural societies and avant-garde artists, was most prominent in the visual, literary, and dramatic fields. Proletkult aspired to radically modify existing artistic forms by creating

183-434: A broad variety of issues from folk songs, children's art, faktura , lubki , African sculpture and dance as well as the sort of study of the fundamental elements originally allocated to the first section. Although Kandinsky adopted what superficially appeared to be scientific methods to determine the nature of these elements, for example by circulating surveys, the way these surveys were drawn seemed to indicate his approach

244-551: A bureaucratic apparatus which quickly came to include no fewer than 17 different departments. Headed by Anatoly Lunacharsky, this organization sought to expand adult literacy and to establish a broad and balanced general school curricula, in opposition to pressure from the trade unions and the Supreme Council of National Economy , which sought to give preference to vocational education . The as-yet loosely organized Proletkult movement emerged as another potential competitor to

305-591: A citywide theatre organization, declaring their refusal to work with non-proletarian theatre groups. Moscow Proletkult, in which Alexander Bogdanov played a leading role, attempted to extend its independent sphere of control even further than the Petrograd organization, addressing questions of food distribution, hygiene, vocational education, and issuing a call for establishment of a proletarian university at its founding convention in February 1918. Some hardliners in

366-472: A concentration of bourgeois intellectuals and potential political oppositionists. At its peak in 1920, Proletkult had 84,000 members actively enrolled in about 300 local studios, clubs, and factory groups, with an additional 500,000 members participating in its activities on a more casual basis. The earliest roots of the Proletarian Culture movement, better known as Proletkult, are found in

427-729: A founder of the Proletarian Culture organization, Proletkult. The aim of unifying the cultural and educational activities of the Russian labour movements first occurred at the Agitation Collegium of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet which met on 19 July 1917 with 120 participants. It was attended by many different currents, and when the Menshevik Dementiev suggested that the meeting just be confined to public lectures and that

488-599: A long-time Vpered associate of Bogdanov and Lunacharsky named Fedor Kalinin , among others. Also playing a key role was the future Chairman of the Organising Bureau of the National Proletkult, Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii , another former member of Bogdanov and Lunacharsky's émigré political group. Many of these would be catapulted into leading roles in the People's Commissariat of Education following

549-514: A new mass organization known as the All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP) a year later. The Proletkult organizations of Petrograd and Moscow controlled their own dramatic theatrical network, including under its umbrella a number of smaller city clubs maintaining their own theatrical studios. Petrograd Proletkult opened a large central studio early in 1918 which staged a number of new and experimental works with

610-799: A new, revolutionary working-class aesthetic, which drew its inspiration from the construction of modern industrial society in backward, agrarian Russia. Although funded by the People's Commissariat for Education of Soviet Russia , the Proletkult organization sought autonomy from state control, a demand which brought it into conflict with the Communist Party hierarchy and the Soviet state bureaucracy. Some top party leaders, such as Lenin , sought to concentrate state funding and retain it from such artistic endeavors. He and others also saw in Proletkult

671-416: A par with the political and economic struggle of the working class. But in creating its own culture, the working class by no means should reject the rich cultural heritage of the past, the material and spiritual achievements, made by classes which are alien and hostile to the proletariat. The proletarian must look it over critically, choose what is of value, elucidate it with his own point of view, use it with

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732-404: A reborn philosophical idealism that stood in diametrical opposition to the fundamental materialist foundation of Marxism. So disturbed was Lenin that he spent much of 1908 combing more than 200 books to pen a thick polemical volume in reply — Materialism and Empirio-Criticism: Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy . Lenin ultimately emerged triumphant in the struggle for hegemony of

793-424: A total of 84,000 members in 300 local groups, with an additional 500,000 more casual followers. A total of 15 different Proletkult periodicals were produced over the course of the organization's short existence, including most importantly Proletarskaia kultura (Proletarian Culture — 1918 to 1921) and Gorn (Furnace — 1918 to 1923). Historically, the relationship between the Russian liberal intelligentsia and

854-400: A view to producing his own culture. This work on a new culture ought to proceed along a completely independent path. 'Proletkults' should be class-restricted, workers' organizations, completely autonomous in their activities. Proletkult's theorists generally espoused a hardline economic determinism , arguing that only purely working class organizations were capable of advancing the cause of

915-462: A wave of worker-poets, with only limited artistic success. The insistence upon developing new poets of questionable talent led to a split of the Proletkult in 1919, when a large group of young writers, most of whom were poets, broke from the organization due to what they believed to be a stifling of individual creative talent. These defectors from Proletkult initially formed a small, elite organization called Kuznitsa (The Forge) before again launching

976-511: A worker nor a stupid editor at Pravda [a rival publication] could understand it." In 1913 Bogdanov, a student of the Taylor system of factory work-flow rationalization, published a massive work on the topic, General Organizational Science, which Lenin liked no better. The pair went their separate ways, with Bogdanov dropping out of radical politics at the end of 1913, returning home with his wife to Moscow . He would later be reinvigorated by

1037-673: The Bolsheviks should be excluded, but this was soundly rejected. Consequently, the Central Council of Factory Committees was instructed to work with the Petrograd Soviet to organise a second conference of "proletarian cultural-educational organizations" to bring them together in a centralized organization. A first conference of these groups was held in Petrograd from October 16 to 19, 1917 (O.S.) . The conclave

1098-528: The Red Army , the Communist Party, and its youth section . The new government of Soviet Russia was quick to understand that these rapidly proliferating clubs and societies offered a potentially powerful vehicle for the spread of the radical political, economic, and social theories it favored. The chief cultural authority of the Soviet state was its People's Commissariat of Education ( Narkompros ),

1159-592: The agit-trains and agit-boats, that circulated over all Russia spreading Revolution and revolutionary arts. He also gave support to Constructivism 's theatrical experiments and the initiatives such as the ROSTA Windows , revolutionary posters designed and written by Mayakovsky, Rodchenko, and others. Izo-Narkompros also published Iskusstvo kommuny (Art of the Commune) of which 19 issues appeared between 7 December 1918 and April 1919. Lenin saw film as

1220-399: The bourgeoisie . Under a workers' state, some Marxist theoreticians believed, the new proletarian ruling class would develop its own distinct class culture to supplant the former culture of the old ruling order. Proletkult was seen as a primary vehicle for the development of this new "proletarian culture." The nature and function of Proletkult was described by Platon Kerzhentsev , one of

1281-411: The dictatorship of the proletariat . An early editorial from the official Proletkult journal Proletarskaia Kultura (Proletarian Culture) demanded that "the proletariat start right now, immediately, to create its own socialist forms of thought, feeling, and daily life, independent of alliances or combinations of political forces." In the view of Alexander Bogdanov and other Proletkult theoreticians,

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1342-449: The " Left Bolsheviks " emerged, stating their case in opposition to party leader Lenin . This group, which included philosophers Alexander Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky and writer Maxim Gorky , argued that the intelligentsia -dominated Bolsheviks must begin following more inclusive tactics and working to develop more working class political activists to assume leadership roles in the next round of anti-Tsarist revolution. Among

1403-470: The "fundamental elements" of art in general, as well as more specific "supplementary elements" which are less generalised, even within a specific medium. The organisation was to be composed of three sections: However nothing much came from the first two sections, and only the third section achieved anything. Supported by both Stepanova and Alexander Rodchenko , this section had 33 meetings between May and December 1920. In fact this section ended up dealing with

1464-568: The Bolshevik faction. Relations between them in Western European exile remained tense. During the first decade of the 20th Century Bogdanov wrote two works of utopian science fiction about socialist societies on Mars , both of which were rejected by Lenin as attempts to smuggle "Machist idealism" into the radical movement. The second of these, a book called Engineer Menni (1913), was pronounced by Lenin to be "so vague that neither

1525-407: The Bolshevik seizure of power which followed less than two weeks later. The October Revolution led to a marked increase in the number of new cultural organizations and informal groups. Clubs and cultural societies sprung up affiliated with newly empowered factories, unions, cooperatives, and workers' and soldiers' councils , in addition to similar groups attached to more formal institutions such as

1586-628: The Bolsheviks to the seat of power. The Russian Civil War was another matter altogether — a long and brutal struggle which strained every sinew. The radical intelligentsia of Russia was mobilized by these events. Anatoly Lunacharsky, who had briefly broken with Lenin and the Bolshevik Party to become a newspaper correspondent in France and Italy , returned to Russia in May 1917 and rejoined

1647-500: The Left Bolsheviks, Anatoly Lunacharsky in particular had been intrigued with the possibility of making use of art as a means to inspire revolutionary political action. In addition, together with the celebrated Gorky, Lunacharsky hoped to found a "human religion" around the idea of socialism , motivating individuals to serve a greater good outside of their own narrow self-interests. Working along similar lines simultaneously

1708-471: The Proletkult organization even insisted that Proletkult be recognized as the "ideological leader of all public education and enlightenment." Ultimately, however, the vision of Proletkult as the rival and guiding light of Narkompros fell by the wayside, subdued by the Proletkult's financial reliance on the Commissariat for operational funding. Proletkult received a budget of 9.2 million gold rubles for

1769-599: The Working Group of Objective Analysis in November 1920. People%27s Commissariat for Education The People's Commissariat for Education (or Narkompros ; Russian : Народный комиссариат просвещения, Наркомпрос , directly translated as the "People's Commissariat for Enlightenment") was the Soviet agency charged with the administration of public education and most other issues related to culture. In 1946, it

1830-592: The aftermath of the failed 1905-1907 Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia . The censorship apparatus of the Tsarist regime had stumbled briefly during the upheaval, broadening horizons, but the revolution had ultimately failed, resulting in dissatisfaction and second-guessing, even within Bolshevik Party ranks. In the aftermath of the Tsar's reassertion of authority a radical political tendency known as

1891-406: The arts were not the province of a specially gifted elite, but rather were the physical output of individuals with a set of learned skills. All that was required, it was assumed, was for one to study basic artistic technique in a very few lessons, after which anyone was capable of becoming a proletarian artist. The movement by Proletkult to establish a network of studios in which workers could enroll

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1952-419: The bills. The government would supply the central Proletkult with a subsidy, to be distributed among provincial affiliates. But because financial dependence on the state clearly contradicted the organization's claims to independence, the central leaders held out the hope that their affiliates would soon discover their own means of support. Proletkult and its desire for autonomy also had another powerful patron in

2013-592: The center of Proletkult's own organizational gravity shifted simultaneously. Lines became blurred between the Proletkult organization and the Division for Proletarian Culture of the People's Commissariat of Education, headed by Proletkult activist Fyodor Kalinin. While the organization retained its staunch supporters in the Narkompros apparatus seeking to coordinate activities, it also contained no small number of activists like Alexander Bogdanov who tried to promote

2074-413: The central government of the Soviet state was weak, with factory workers often ignoring their trade unions and teachers the curriculum instructions of central authorities. In this political environment any centrally-devised scheme for a division of authority between Narkompros and the federated artistic societies of Proletkult remained largely a theoretical exercise. In the early days of the Bolshevik regime

2135-467: The collegium (deliberative organ) and the section proper (executive organ). The first collegium was headed by Vladimir Tatlin and included Kasimir Malevich , Ilya Mashkov , Nadezhda Udaltsova , Olga Rozanova , Alexander Rodchenko , Wassily Kandinsky . It was subdivided into a number of subsections. Lunacharsky directed some of the great experiments in public arts after the Revolution such as

2196-612: The consequences of state funding was the maintenance of stenographic records, originally kept by Varvara Stepanova and after 1921 by Nikolai Tarabukin . These were published in 1979 by Selim Khan-Magomedov . Kandinsky's presented the Inaugural Programme in June 1920 to conference with delegates from the Svomas (State Free Art Studios). Central to his presentation was the idea of a "science of art" whereby would research into

2257-651: The course of events to become a leading figure in the Moscow Proletkult organization — a fact which emphasizes the tension between that organization and state authorities. The February Revolution of 1917 which overthrew the Tsarist regime came comparatively easily. So, too, did the October Revolution which followed, events which overthrew the Russian Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky and brought Lenin and

2318-470: The first half of 1918 — nearly one-third of the entire budget for Narkompros's Adult Educational Division. Requisitioned buildings were put to the organization's use, with the Petrograd organization receiving a large and posh facility located on one of the city's main thoroughfares, Nevsky Prospect — the name of which was actually changed to "Proletkult Street" (Ulitsa Proletkul'ta) in the organization's honor. Proletarskaya Kul'tura (Proletarian Culture)

2379-436: The first years of the regime. Political activists disputed the authority of the central state, the role of the Communist Party within it, and the influence national agencies should wield over local groups. Altercations over scarce resources and institutional authority were intertwined with theoretical debates over the ideal structure of the new policy. Moreover, in the early revolutionary period control over local institutions by

2440-408: The future would require forging a fundamentally new perspective of the role of science, ethics, and art with respect to the individual and the state. Together all these ideas of Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Gorky, and their co-thinkers came to be known in the language of the day as "god-building" (bogostroitel'stvo). These ideas did not exist in a vacuum; there was a political component as well. During

2501-423: The local apparatus of Proletkult retained the most powerful hand. With its adherent Anatoly Lunacharsky at the helm of Narkompros, the Proletkult movement had an important patron with considerable influence over state policy and the purse. This did not mean an easy relationship between these institutions, however. Early in 1918 leaders of Petrograd Proletkult refused to cooperate with an effort by Narkompros to form

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2562-701: The most important medium for educating the masses in the ways, means and successes of communism . As a consequence Lenin issued the "Directives on the Film Business" on 17 January 1922, which instructed the Narkompros to systemise the film business, registering and numbering all films shown in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , extracting rent from all privately owned cinemas and subject them to censorship. Proletkult Proletkult (Russian: Пролетку́льт , IPA: [prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt] ),

2623-475: The movement's top leaders in 1919: The task of the 'Proletkults' is the development of an independent proletarian spiritual culture, including all areas of the human spirit — science, art, and everyday life. The new socialist epoch must produce a new culture, the foundations of which are already being laid. This culture will be the fruit of the creative efforts of the working class and will be entirely independent. Work on behalf of proletarian culture should stand on

2684-670: The official policy after Joseph Stalin put him in disgrace. Narkompros had seventeen sections, in addition to the main ones related to general education, e.g., Some of these evolved into separate entities, others discontinued. Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii , as chair of the Organizing Bureau for the National Proletkult argued that Narkompros, as a state organ, had responsibilities for the whole of society, whereas Proletkult asserted its autonomy as an organisation set up specifically for workers class. However, there

2745-606: The organization as an independent cultural institution with a homogeneous working class constituency. In September 1918, the first national conference of Proletkult was convened in Moscow, including 330 delegates and 234 guests from local organizations from around Soviet Russia. While no delegate list has survived, the stenogram of the conference indicates that the bulk of attendees hailed from trade unions, factory organizations, cooperatives, and workers' clubs. Delegates were split between those favoring an autonomous and leading role for

2806-436: The organization in general education in Soviet society and those who favored a more narrow focus for the group as a subordinate part of the Narkompros bureaucracy. While those favoring autonomy were in the majority at the first national conference, the ongoing problem of organizational finance remained a real one, as historian Lynn Mally has observed: Although the Proletkult was autonomous, it still expected Narkompros to foot

2867-454: The organization set up an elaborate bureaucratic apparatus resembling that of Narkompros. Moscow Proletkult, for example, had departments for literary publishing, theatre, music, art, and clubs. In addition to this central bureaucracy, Proletkult established factory cells attached to the highly concentrated mills and manufacturing facilities. Finally, Proletkult established "studios" — independent facilities in which workers learned and developed

2928-540: The party in August. Following the October Revolution, Lunacharsky was appointed Commissar of Education of the new government. Lunacharsky's factional ally, Alexander Bogdanov, remained sharply critical of Lenin and his political tactics and never rejoined the Communist Party, however. Instead he served at the front as a doctor during World War I, returning home to Moscow in 1917 and becoming involved there as

2989-414: The period between the failure of the 1905 revolution and the outbreak of World War I , Alexander Bogdanov stood as the chief rival to Lenin for leadership of the Bolshevik party. To the intellectually rigid Lenin, Bogdanov was not only a political rival, but also a positive threat to the ideology of Marxism . Lenin saw Bogdanov and the "god-building" movement with which he was associated as purveyors of

3050-402: The person of Nikolai Bukharin , editor of Pravda . Bukharin provided favorable coverage for Proletkult during the organization's formative period, welcoming the idea that the group represented a "laboratory of pure proletarian ideology" with a legitimate claim to independence from Soviet governmental control. Proletkult made use of different organizational forms. In large industrial cities,

3111-431: The primacy of Narkompros. This confusing welter of competing institutions and organizations was by no means unique to the cultural field, as historian Lynn Mally has noted: All early Soviet institutions struggled against what was called 'parallelism,' the duplication of services by competing bureaucratic systems. The revolution raised difficult questions about governmental organization that were only slowly answered during

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3172-465: The techniques of the various arts. Narkompros, for its part, sought to influence Proletkult to concentrate its efforts upon the expansion of the network of studios. In April 1919, People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky declared that Proletkult "should concentrate all its attention on studio work, on the discovery and encouragement of original talent among the workers, on the creation of circles of writers, artists, and all kinds of young scholars from

3233-403: The working class was that of teacher and student. This situation presumed a "higher" level of culture on the part of the aristocratic teachers — an accepted premise of the Bolsheviks themselves during the pre-revolutionary period. Under Marxist theory, however, culture was conceived as a part of the superstructure associated with the dominant class in society — in the Russian instance, that of

3294-401: The working class". Proletkult and its studios and clubs gained a certain measure of popularity among a broad segment of the urban Russian population, particularly factory workers. By the end of 1918 the organization counted 147 local affiliates, although the actual number of functioning units was probably somewhat fewer. At the peak of the organization's strength in 1920, Proletkult claimed

3355-468: Was Lunacharsky's brother-in-law Bogdanov, who even in 1904 had published a weighty philosophical tome called Empiriomonism which attempted to integrate the ideas of non-Marxist thinkers Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius into the socialist edifice. (Lunacharsky had studied under Avenarius in Zurich and was responsible for introducing Bogdanov to his ideas.) Bogdanov believed that the socialist society of

3416-532: Was a journal issued by Proletkult from July 1918 to February 1921. The issues had a series numbered up to 21, which with double issues comprised 13 different publications While the Proletkult movement began as independent groups in Petrograd (October 1917) and Moscow (February 1918), it was not long before the group's patrons in the Soviet state intervened to help forge a national organization. The Soviet government itself moved from Petrograd to Moscow in March 1918 and

3477-835: Was called by Lunacharsky in his role as head of the Cultural-Educational Commission of the Petrograd Bolshevik organization and was attended by 208 delegates representing Petrograd trade unions, factory committees, army and youth groups, city and regional dumas, as well as the Petrograd Committee of the Bolshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties. This October 1917 conference elected a Central Committee of Proletarian Cultural-Educational Organizations of Petrograd which included among its members Lunacharsky, Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya , talented young journalist Larisa Reisner , and

3538-441: Was concern with "parallelism" - the situation which arose when similar work was carried out in parallel by different organisations. In early 1918 Narkompros gave Proletkult a budget of over 9,200,000 rubles, whereas the entire Adult Education Division received 32,500,000 rubles. The Izo-Narkompros (Изо-наркомпрос), or the section of visual arts (отдел изобразительных искусств) created on 29 January 1918. It consisted of two parts:

3599-469: Was more predetermined by his aesthetic theories - such as the centrality of the artists "inner necessity" - than a more objective approach. Thus his colleagues started organising a way to resist the subjectivism of what was referred to as "Kandinsky's psychologism". Criticism of Kandinsky was initiated by Nikolay Punin , who complained his art was accidental and individualistic. This encouraged Stepanova, Rodchenko, Liubov Popova and Varvara Bubnova to form

3660-399: Was seen as an essential part of training this new cohort of proletarian artists. Despite the organization's rhetoric about its proletarian exclusivity, however, the movement was guided by intellectuals throughout its entire brief history, with its efforts to promote workers from the bench to leadership positions largely unsuccessful. Proletkult expended great energy in attempting to launch

3721-481: Was transformed into the Ministry of Education . Its first head was Anatoly Lunacharsky . However he described Nadezhda Krupskaya as the "soul of Narkompros". Mikhail Pokrovsky , Dmitry Leshchenko and Evgraf Litkens also played important roles. Lunacharsky protected most of the avant-garde artists such as Vladimir Mayakovsky , Kazimir Malevich , Vladimir Tatlin and Vsevolod Meyerhold . Despite his efforts,

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